Leap of Faith
by suchlostcreatures
Summary: She is alone in the desert, searching for the means to defeat a new threat that has risen from The Beyond. Until the mechanical wail of a TIE cuts through the air and the familiar shape of a Silencer appears on the horizon... Inspired by THAT scene from teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
1. Chapter 1

**Leap of Faith**

**by Suchlostcreatures (aka Sorrow Reminisce)**

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The trackless desert pans out before Rey in a vast expanse of crumbling sand. Panting hard, her mouth as dry as the grit beneath her feet, she scans the horizon. Something - a sandstorm - is coming. She can feel it in the wind.

A mechanical shriek suddenly punctures the air, sending an echoing shudder down Rey's spine. She holds herself straight and calmly unclips the lightsaber from her belt as a dark speck appears on the horizon. A determined frown settles upon her brow as the speck hurtles towards her. It's size growing and taking shape as it cuts across the desert floor.

Not a sandstorm.

_Five, four, three…_

Igniting the saber, Rey remains steady as the harsh desert sunlight glints off the unmistakably sharp lines of a TIE Silencer. Timing is everything.

_Two, one._

Spinning on her heel, she drops into a 3-point stance, the hint of a smile touching her lips as she glances over her shoulder. Defying the pilot to do his worst. The whine of the machine shifts as it picks up speed. She'll never be able to outrun it. But she'll give it a damned good shot.

Adrenalin surging through her veins, Rey finally throws herself into a headlong sprint; the ignited saber whirling in her pumping arms as her long strides carry her across the open desert. The TIE is closing in. The pilot is reckless; steering the craft so close to the ground she can hear the desert floor tear asunder in its wake.

Soon the starfighter will be upon her. Soon, her thumping heart tells her, she too will be shredded beneath it. Still, Rey holds her course straight. Straight - even though her instincts beg her to bank left. Towards the nearest rock formations. Towards the chance of refuge.

Finally, with every hair on her body tingling with the warning that it's now or never_,_ Rey feels the Force burst from within her as she vaults high into the air; her body jackknifing as the sleek black vessel cuts through space she just occupied.

Space she still occupies.

Because now she's dropping onto the transparent canopy of its cockpit. The hilt of her hastily extinguished lightsaber clenched awkwardly between her teeth - she cannot hope to wield it when she needs her fingers to fight for purchase upon the vessel's frame. She underestimated just how much the sheer pressure of G-forces would threaten to send her careening over the back of the craft and into the furnace-hot path of its ion thrusters.

_Force help me, this was a foolish gamble._

Gathering every reserve of determination, Rey clings to the cockpit frame as the pilot maintains his relentless speed; hurtling across the barren landscape as if his intruder's presence is no more a threat than a bug on a windscreen.

Finally, after gaining enough hold to risk letting go of one hand, Rey clips her saber back to her belt and presses a one-fingered salute against the transparisteel pane below. Then she throws back her head and laughs into the searing wind - even as the effort snatches the breath from her lungs. She's no bug on a windscreen. She vaulted onto the back of a beast. Now she will tame it and claim it for her own.

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As the distant mountain range becomes not-so-distant and the open desert gives way to rocky outcrops, the TIE pilot relaxes his hold on the throttle and allows his craft to slow. Above him, his passenger rises from her belly-flat position into a half-crouch. Arms extended for balance as if surfing the wind itself.

He grimaces against the sudden burst of admiration that swells in his chest. She's nothing if not stubborn.

A modest campsite comes into view. Soft tendrils of smoke rise from a dying cookfire. Two nerf-hide tents stand unobtrusively at the base of a sheer cliff. There has been no sign of a sentient being for a hundred miles. But they're out there somewhere. Hiding the crevices of the cliffs. Sheltering from the desert heat in underground caverns.

Without warning, his hitchhiker leaps from atop of the Silencer and hits the ground running; reaching the campfire and spinning to face him with her lightsaber ignited once more. But it's the gleam of her teeth set in that triumphant grin that holds his attention. She is reckless and feral and more comfortable in this environment than anyone should be. He'll more than likely have to kill her. And it bothers him to realise that he's not as comfortable with that as he should be.

With a sigh of resignation, the pilot extinguishes the thrusters and draws his craft to a halt. He allows himself a moment to school his expression into a mask of absolute neutrality before punching the control to slide the canopy open.

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"Took you long enough, Ben Solo!" Rey cries defiantly as the black-clad figure leaps from his craft.

"You know that's not my name." He strides across the sand towards her, igniting his own snarling red saber as she switched to a defensive stance.

"Besides," he continues, arcing the blade with a flick of his wrists, "you cheated."

"How so?" Rey juts out her chin in defiance as she casually deflects his mock blow, "I beat you back to base, did I not?"

"By hitching a ride? That's a draw, at least," pulling back his hood, Kylo Ren shakes out his mop of raven hair and flashes a rare smile, "or do you hope to contest me with a duel?"

The smile catches Rey off-guard; transforming Kylo's usual aloof expression into something soft and boyish and uncomfortably attractive. Ducking her head, she wills the heat to leave her cheeks least it encourages him to smile further.

"I think we've had enough training for one day, don't you think? Besides, a sandstorm's coming."

Extinguishing her saber, Rey turns her back and busies herself with checking the tent poles and fastenings.

"If you say so," the erratic crackle of Kylo's blade is silenced, "but it'll take more than the ability to Force-vault, to defeat Darth Sidious."

"It will," Rey glances back to him, "that's why I'll have you at my side."

She holds her breath as his expression grows austere once more - but for the muscle that twitches beneath his left eye. The subconscious tic that lets her know he's grappling to keep some long-repressed emotion under rein. The tell that reminds her he is, after all, human.

She wonders if she's made a mistake. This fragile pact that exists between them has never been spoken aloud. Their mutual hatred for Darth Sidious - the Sith Lord who was long thought dead but who has in fact been Snoke's puppet master all along - is what drew them to this planet. Each on their own separate journey that, by some cosmic accident or design, saw them forced to work together. _The enemy of my enemy,_ and all that.

But Kylo Ren has never agreed to fight at her side. That he's here - training her upon the wind-swept desert of Pasaana at all - is just as likely a scheme to weaponise a Lightsider for his own use. She'd be fooling herself to hope that his efforts are a genuine play for redemption.

Especially while he still insists on being called _Kylo Ren._

"I'm sorry," she says finally, "I just assumed…"

"Yes, you did." Kylo interrupts; tone cool and clipped. Expression unreadable.

Rey nods wordlessly and turns away. Interacting with this man is like trying to tame an injured ripper-raptor. She attempted that once - and wound up bitten for her efforts. It's really quite stupid to make that mistake again.

"Snoke was right about one thing." The words burst from the Darksider so unexpectedly, even his own eyes widen in surprise. He stays her with one hand upon her wrist, pulling her back towards him. His touch surprisingly warm for someone whose demeanour is so often glacial.

She waits for him to continue. Waits as that muscle twitches frantically beneath his left eye until it's all she can do not to reach out and smooth her hand against his cheek. _Remember the ripper-raptor. _Her fingers curl in her palms.

"Snoke was a manipulative puppet who sought to make a puppet out of me in turn." Kylo bites his lip and Rey can feel the fury such an admittance has evoked as it sends ripples through the Force.

"But he was right about one thing. _Darkness rises, and light to meet it. _We are each other's counterparts, Rey. We are the darkness and light that will rise together to defeat _anyone _who crosses our path."

"Darth Sidious." Rey states. The flutter of hope within her chest tangles within stomach-coils of warning. The earnestness in Kylo Ren's voice is almost her undoing. But she still remembers that same earnestness as he told her to let her friends die and start anew. She has seen little change between Snoke's rule and his own, since then.

"Darth Sidious." Kylo reiterates. "I _ will _stand by your side, Rey. We'll fight him together."

His hands have slipped into her own, his grip light. Hesitant. She stares at their entwined fingers. Unable to bring herself to meet his gaze.

"And what do you want in return?" she manages, afraid of the truth. Afraid of the lie. Afraid of not knowing how to recognise one from the other.

"You know the answer to that," his breath brushes the crown of her downcast head for the barest instant before he pulls away.

She thinks, perhaps, this is the leap of faith Leia urged her to take when she left for this journey. When the General's eyes were saying, 'bring my son home' every time their gaze met.

"I will never join _Kylo Ren,_" she says pointedly, "but I will fight at your side because, right now, Sidious is the bigger threat to our galaxy."

Kylo bristles at her words; fingers tightening against her own as he prepares a rebuke.

She presses on before he can gather momentum, "and then, when this is over, we can go back to being enemies - to trying to kill each other."

Disappointment sits like a lodestone in her gut as she envisions a future where they're enemies once more. Kylo's expression is inscrutable, but she sees that muscle twitch beneath his eye and wonders if he feels it too.

"Or," a nervous smile falters upon her lips. She thinks of Leia, draws in a deep breath, and takes the leap.

"You can join _me_."

* * *

_**Chapter Note: **__Hands up who else thought the TIE scene was a training exercise from the moment they first viewed the trailer? I've re-watched it a billion times _since,_ and still feel Rey _gives a little hint of_ a smile or challenge or something before she runs. Like, she's expecting this TIE to appear. In my head canon, she's eventually _gonna_ be up there practising her lightsaber combat forms like when Mr Miyagi had Daniel _LaRusso_ practice his stances while balancing on a boat in Karate Kid._

_Though _it could be that_ Kylo isn't firing at her because his weapon system _is disabled_, and she's leaping up to slice her saber through the TIE like she's carving a Sunday roast... _Aw, I'll have to take a shot at writing another story from that angle now...


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: **This is a repost of chapter 2, with some additional dialogue missing from my last rushed effort. I know chapter one seemed like it was going to lead straight into something light and fluffy with Kylo agreeing to join her and them riding off into a great galactic sunset to live happily ever after... But I like these two better when they're mostly angsty - with a good measure of UST. (Actually, chapter one was meant to be a one shot. Perhaps I should have left it as such!)_

* * *

**Leap of Faith**

**Chapter Two**

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Rey can see Kylo's refusal forming before he opens his mouth. Reads it in the tension that settles over him as the weight of her invitation sinks in.

She braces herself, fingers already slackening in his hands.

" I can't."

There it is.

"Right." She extracts herself from his grasp. Ducks her head against the embarrassment that sears her cheeks. Fool, she curses inwardly. Not sure which one of them its aimed at.

"Rey, I cant. There's no going back for me."

"Of course." Bitterness sharpens her voice and she lets it. "And you're right. There's nowhere back for you to go."

He flinches, just a little. Just enough for her to regret her words.

"You're not going to at least try to convince me my mother will hold out her arms and forgive my patricide?" Kylo's lips twist in sudden spite, "no assurances that the Resistance will shower me in accolades for giving up the First Order, and grant me amnesty for my vile, murdering ways?"

"Just stop it," hot anger burns Rey's eyes. Catches in her throat. "I don't need a reminder of what you are."

"But you do," he says softly, stepping forward so that he looms, "don't you? Because you just can't stop yourself from hoping I can be turned."

It disappoints her; how recklessly he can destroy the fragile camaraderie they've built. How he can shape words into daggers and throw them into the air, unmindful of whether they wound her, or himself. How ready he is to self-destruct.

She meets his dark blazing eyes and holds herself steady, letting her own anger harden her stare. He tenses beneath her scrutiny and she understands then exactly why he strikes out the way he does.

"You speak of forgiveness and amnesty as if you scorn it," she says at last. Quietly. Purposefully. "But the truth of it is, it's what you long for the most."

He draws back then as if her words are a slap. Mouth opening and closing wordlessly as a come back scrambles for purchase upon his tongue. Indignation. Denial. That ridiculously volatile anger. All of it is laid bare before her like a book begging to be read.

Little wonder he always favoured a mask.

"There's a storm coming." She changes the subject before his denials can find shape. "I suggest you secure your tent."

* * *

Rey isn't wrong about the sandstorm.

It begins with transient flurries that dance across the desert floor. Brief scatters of grit that whirl up into the air, twisting and billowing like spinning marionettes before settling to the ground once more.

Nothing fierce and terrifying, Kylo thinks indifferently.

Nothing to justify why the girl is scaling the nearest cliff-face with supplies strapped to her back and pushing them deep into a crevice for safe-keeping. Or why she's assessing their nerf-hide tents with a doubtful eye and scouting the surrounding cliffs for a fissure high and deep enough for them to presumably wedge _themselves_ into.

"Do you think we should try to squeeze my TIE into a crevice too?" He watches from his entrance flap as a sheet of sand rises into the air and lazily buffers his starfighter before continuing on across the valley floor. To his disappointment, Rey meets his sarcasm with pointed silence.

He thinks the storm will blow itself out before it reaches their valley. That it won't be nearly as bad as she makes out. He opens his mouth to say as much, then changes his mind. Grit strikes his face as he looks to the horizon; the line of it blurred by a rolling wall of darkness.

Rey follows his gaze from ship to horizon. Purses her lips and ducks wordlessly into her tent. Kylo shrugs and steps into his own. The wind whistles through the gaps of the fastenings.

The flurries dance closer. Building momentum.

* * *

Of course, the TIE will make an ideal refuge. Rey can't believe she didn't think of it earlier.

As the marshalling storm hurtles grit and stones against her in earnest, she carries the last few essentials - those she hasn't already stashed up the cliff - from her tent to the starfighter. Then scrutinises the small pile and wonders if the half dozen canteens of water will be enough.

If the sandstorms of Pasaana are anything like those on Jakku, she could be holed up in the starfighter for several days. The tents could be ripped away and anything once in them buried deep under sand drifts.

Turning towards Kylo's tent, Rey feels her stomach knot in sudden trepidation. With her mind so focused on surviving the immediate problem, she's forgotten the problem of him. But it's still there all right. And so is he.

Kylo Ren has paid no heed to her warning. She wouldn't be surprised if he's performing some dark ritualistic dance around Vader's helmet right now while trying to bend the elements to his will. Still, she's going to have to fetch him. Drag his sulking ass to the ship if she must.

After all, she's out of time to crack his passcode.

* * *

"Ren! Pack your gear, we're -"

Fumbling open the tent fastenings, Rey steps inside to find Kylo's sparse belongings already packed into his holdall, with him perched atop of it.

"You're ready to go?" she nods to herself, "well, that's good then. I hadn't forgotten you, of course."

"Of course," Kylo repeats, holding her gaze until she feels the silence strain between them and clears her throat for the sake of breaking the tension.

As if it's the cue he's been waiting for, he stands and hefts his bag over his shoulder. She steps aside as he strides wordlessly from the tent. The wind pushes against him as he makes his way, head down, towards the starfighter. Rey gets the sense he's pushing back against it just as hard. That he'll hurtle anything from his path if it gets in his way.

It occurs to her then, how small the TIE's cockpit is, for both of them to occupy. And she sighs with the realisation they'll be getting in each other's way. Quite a bit.

* * *

With their supplies on board and the ship sealed, Kylo swallows a sense of suffocation at how small the cockpit seems to have shrunk now that it's become the storeroom for gear and an additional passenger. Rey's thoughts seem to mirror his own, as she immediately begins trying to wedge their gear beneath the control panels.

Even as he takes the pilot seat and begins checking the displays, sand drifts are banking against the vehicle and rising winds are rocking the ship. The small craft's lightweight design is ideal for ease of manoeuvrability in dogfights - not so much for withstanding planetary environmental assaults.

Frowning over the information relaying through the displays, he flicks the controls in silence, activating the deflector shield before firing up the ion thrusters.

"What are you doing?" Alarm piques Rey's voice. She braces herself as the craft rises unevenly and banks heavily under the wind's mounting assault.

"I'm going to manoeuvre us behind that outcrop. It'll give us some shelter."

She grunts an affirmation and returns to her task. Neither suggests flying out of the storm and taking refuge elsewhere. The vast uninhabited plain offers their best chance at concealment from a bigger threat than just a sandstorm. And they're not ready for taking on bigger threats. Yet.

Manoeuvering the vehicle takes every once of Kylo's skill. The storm is buffering them in earnest now. Visibility is almost zero, and he has to rely on the sensors for guidance. The solar arrays create wind tunnels for the squallish winds to scream through, causing the ship to pitch dangerous each time a flurry catches a wing. With the TIE designed for space flight at extreme speeds, it doesn't handle well at low speed. To push the throttle just a fraction too hard risks punching through the outcrop he's trying to nestle them behind.

With a white-knuckled grip on the control yoke and a tirade of cursing from Rey than would put a smuggler to shame, Kylo guides the ship into a position where the brunt of the storm will bypass them.

Or so he hopes.

* * *

As the craft stills and the thrusters wind down, Rey releases a long-held breath and settles herself on the floor, atop her bedroll. Her gaze flickers to Kylo, rigid in his seat. She doesn't want to continue this stupid fight. Not after they'd finally found themselves falling into a pleasant kind of camaraderie. The silence between them is growing so weighted and uncomfortable she feels it will press her from all sides until she bursts.

"Well this is cosy," she remarks with false cheer, though a quick calculation of the length of her body versus the available floor space suggests 'claustrophobic' and 'uncomfortable' would make more appropriate terms.

"Uh-huh."

She bites back the urge to say something else. Something that will surely provoke more reaction than a grunt. Instead, she rolls out her bedding and wriggles into her grey Resistance-issue sleeping bag.

Even with the outcrop to offer some protection from the storm's brunt, the craft rocks slightly from the force of the gale. Closing her eyes, Rey reflects on Jakku - on the countless times she'd spent holed up in her AT-AT, alone and afraid as she waited out a storm. Never entirely sure if she'd wake to find herself entombed beneath the sands. Knowing no one would care enough to seek her out if she was.

Shifting to stretch out her legs, she glances to Kylo; still rigid in his seat and no doubt more uncomfortable than she.

This time, she thinks as she closes her eyes again, she's not alone. And she's not afraid. Not even of the clearly-frustrated Darksider; who sits grim and stoic in his pilot seat, sending angry vibes through the Force like ill-plucked harp strings.

* * *

"You're right."

Rey almost jumps at Kylo's soft-spoken words. She frowns, grasping to remember the last thing they said to each other; to put this sudden admission into context.

"You... think this is cosy?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he snorts, before turning his head just enough to catch her in his peripheral vision. "I meant... what you said earlier. About forgiveness. Amnesty. Love."

"I said nothing about love," she stumbles, flushing as she pushes herself up on one elbow.

"You didn't?" He says evenly, "well. I must've been reading between the lines."

Rey exhales slowly, fingers picking absently at a seam of her sleeping bag. "Your mother still loves you," she says after a beat, "despite all that you've done."

He says nothing. The silence stretches once more. She picks the seam until it starts to unravel. Then pulls at the loosened stands. At this rate, she thinks idly, her sleeping bag will be reduced to a pile of unspooled thread.

"So you _do_ want forgiveness?" She continues finally. "You think that by driving back Darth Sidious, you'll make amends?"

"Perhaps," he grinds, voice strained, "you're not listening to what I'm trying to say. Perhaps we should just forget I said anything at all."

"Perhaps you're right." She bristles at his tone and ignores the ache of unsaid things. Her stubbornness can rival his own, after all.

As the minutes slide by, the silence between them congeals. Rey burrows deeper into her sleeping bag, her eyes lingering on Kylo's rigid back. She's struck suddenly by an urge to suggest he give up on that damn pilot seat and lay his bedroll on the cramped cockpit floor. For practicalities' sake, of course. And perhaps for the amusement of watching him blush. Of coaxing _some_ warm-blooded human reaction out of him.

But she clamps her jaw shut and swallows back the notion. It's only day one of the storm, after all.

They probably have at least two more to go.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sandstorm, Day 2_

It's the screaming that wakes her.

High pitched and inhuman, the sound bleeds into her. Pushing into her pores. Knifing through her stomach.

It's the wail of a TIE fighter bearing down on her. Closer and closer until the hairs of her neck rise in warning and the scream that breaks from her lips infuses into the scream of the starship and the world around her rocks and heaves and sways with the collision the two have made.

Throwing out her arms to catch herself, Rey feels her stomach heave towards her throat and she sits up gasping. Eyes snapping open to meet the wide-eyed startled stare of -

"Ben?"

He winces but holds his tongue against correction. Her attention shifts past him, to the sleek black interior of their surroundings. Not the outside of a TIE. The _inside _of one. And the scream that woke her was merely the wind slamming against the corrugated surface of the craft's solar arrays.

"I was dreaming." Self-conscious beneath the darksider's inscrutable stare, Rey rubs a hand to the back of her neck and ducks her head.

"I gathered that." He clears his throat, blinking away. "I would have woken you but…" he shrugs finally, "I didn't."

"Thanks." She says dryly, stretching out her legs to ease the cramps. "So how did _you _sleep?"

"I didn't."

"Not at all?"

He shrugs like it's nothing before snapping his eyes to the sandstorm that buffers the viewport, "you probably have more experience in sleeping through this, than I."

She follows his gaze and ponders the desert floor rising to collide against the transparisteel as if mounting its own attack, "I suppose so."

"I shut down the deflector shields," unfolding himself from the floor, Kylo slides back into the pilot seat and flicks a few switches on the display, "there's no sense running unnecessary systems when the outcrop protects us from the brunt of the storm."

"Uh-huh."

She glowers at the back of his head, willing him to turn towards her. There's something in the way he sidled the subject away from himself that has her curiosity well and truly spiked. Tentatively, she reaches through the Force, hoping to gauge his thoughts.

"Don't," he growls, low and deadly.

"I'm sorry," the words escape in a sigh.

Pulling the sleeping bag tighter around herself, Rey wonders how she's come to find herself in this predicament. Stuck in a First Order starfighter with the once-Supreme Leader of said Order. She thinks again of the hope in Leia's eyes when she revealed the Oracle's words. A prediction that she and Ben Solo would defeat Darth Sidious by balancing the Force with their dual abilities in the light and dark.

Her stomach clenches when she looks to her companion once more. There's hope in the fact that he seems to believe this prediction too. Although a small beacon of fear inside herself wonders if he'd heard an entirely different message from the Oracle, or if he was following his own interpretation of the ancient creature's murmurs.

Winding her fingers through the fabric of her bedding, Rey's mind turns to the reactions of her friends when she confided the details of her mission. How rage and disbelief warred upon Po's face until it twisted into something ugly. And how Finn simply closed himself to her and stepped away. Disappointment and betrayal shadowing his eyes and weighing heavy on his shoulders as he did so.

She hopes, after all is said and done, that she can prove herself, and Leia, right.

After all, it was Ben Solo the Oracle had based their prediction on. Not Kylo Ren. And for all that Rey had tried using the darksider's birth name again and again in the hope he would come to accept it once more as his own, she knew in her heart she was only fooling herself. He'd shown the _Kylo Ren_ facet of his personality enough times to remind her of this.

"I don't suppose we could continue our training while we're stuck in here?" It surprises her, how well she can force a carefree tone into her voice when cares are the very last thing she feels free of.

He makes no effort to acknowledge her and once the initial prickle of impatience passes, she wonders if he's so deep in his own thoughts, he hasn't even heard.

Closing her eyes, Rey takes three slow deep breaths before putting forth the very last suggestion she ever thought she'd find herself making. "I think we need to practice…" she pauses, wincing at the memory of the pain, "getting inside each other's heads. If we're going to figure out how to balance the Force…"

"Is that really what you want?" His voice poises a razor's edge. Sharp and dangerous. "When we know it's a connection that goes both ways?"

"I…"

"Could you handle _seeing _the atrocities I've committed? Do you think you could still call me _Ben _after that?"

Moving from the pilot seat, he folds himself cross-legged upon the opposite end of her bedroll with more grace than someone his size should manage and leans in, narrow-eyed and unrelenting. "Do you think you would understand me better if you could see my frayed edges for yourself, and unpick them at your leisure?"

Biting back the denial that hovers reflexively upon her tongue, Rey meets his gaze unflinchingly and tilts her chin with defiance. "Maybe."

His dark eyes widen in surprise and she wonders if that's an actual glimmer of hope she sees flaring within them. He may have chosen his words to press for intimidation, but a part of himself wants it to be true. She can see that as clear as if she's reading a book.

"I don't doubt that you've done terrible things. I've heard enough of the stories. From survivors." Swallowing tightly, she blinks against the sudden well of tears that threaten her, "and where you've left no survivors… I've seen…"

"Enough," he hisses, drawing back within himself. "Save this for another time. When we're not trapped within a confined space. It's safer for both of us."

"You're the one who's afraid," she scoffs, incredulous. "You're afraid of the truth of your own self, aren't you?"

He stares at her in silence. The shadows beneath his eyes betray his exhaustion and she wonders how long it's been since he's truly slept. Since he's let down his guard enough to risk it. How long has it been since Hux usurped him of his Supreme Leader mantle?

"Please, Ben." Again she uses his birth name. Daring him to defy it. Continuing quickly before he has the chance to. "Tell me?"

He stares at her, jaw working against words that don't know how to take shape.

"Yes, I'm afraid. Afraid of letting you in my head. Afraid of closing my eyes…" The muscle beneath his eye twitches suddenly. "When I sleep, I dream of my mother. I dream of her in a glade. The light filtering through the trees…" His voice threatens to break and he clears his throat. "I dream we're saying goodbye."

"How do you know it's goodbye?" Rey leans in, hands clenched together within her sleeping bag to stop herself from reaching for him again. "Do you hear those words?"

He raises a brow, perplexed. "What else would she be saying?" A shadow passes his face as if he's suddenly imagining other possibilities.

"Welcome home?" Rey offers.

Perhaps it's her imagination, but for a moment it seems his brow furrows into an expression she can only think of as _wistful _before he smoothes it over again. She takes a breath. It's not her imagination. Not when she feels it too.

"We've been over this -"

"I've had that dream too -"

They both speak at the same time. They both fall silent at the same time. One waiting for the other to elaborate.

"I've had that dream too," Rey says again, unwinding a hand from her bedding at last and touching her fingers against his own. "But it's not goodbye that she's saying to me, Ben."

He watches. Distrustful. A tightness in his face as if he's poised for flight. But there's nowhere for him to run to.

"She's saying, _bring my son home_."

* * *

There's nowhere he can run to. Nothing he can do to escape this girl. This cockpit. This damned storm. Anger rolls through him. Hot and red and sharp as blades through his veins.

"Stop it." He hisses, yanking his hand away. "Stop lying."

"Ben…"

"Stop calling me that name!"

The fury cracks open. Flays him to the bone. The girl flinches as the disjointed hiss of his saber cuts into his rage. He looks around himself and baulks to realise he's leapt to his feet and is standing - partially stooped because of his height - with the damned lightsaber spitting in his grasp.

"Not the place for it, _Kylo_." There's a ferocity in Rey's voice that stays him. She's on her feet now too - blue-bladed saber (_his_ saber, damn it) ready in her hand. "We'll kill each other. Is that what you want?"

"Perhaps not yet," he concedes after a moment's deliberation, thumbing the switch on his hilt and exhaling quietly when she does the same.

He breathes hard. The fury abates as rapidly as it struck. They stand close enough that he can see loose strands of hair dance across her cheek with his heavy breath. His fingers curl into his palm, resisting the urge to reach out - to touch his fingers to those strands and tuck them behind her ear.

_Ridiculous_, he berates himself. Then closes his eyes against the skitter of her heartbeat he can see pulsing at her throat. She's frightened. Though she'll never admit it.

"You should rest. Or at least try to."

He flinches as she lays a hand on his shoulder. Snaps his eyes open to meet her own. She's good at faking concern. He supposes lying is the kind of skill a scavenger would hone for the sake of their own survival.

Pulling away, he slumps back to his damned pilot's seat. "Just stop."

She's relentless, stepping into his peripheral in a renewed effort to get his attention. "We can't work together if we can't at least _try _to trust each other…"

"Trust." He snorts.

"Please, Kylo."

He goes still as the name drops from her tongue. He doesn't like it. Doesn't like the cold, wooden way in which she says it.

He finds himself wishing she'd called him Ben.


End file.
